How to create Lookalike Audiences in Meta Ads to reach the right people and boost ad performance?

The key to converting clicks into customers in Meta Ads, is all about finding the right audience. Now imagine finding more people like your best existing customers and reaching high-quality prospects. Those are called Lookalike Audiences in Meta Ads. In this step to step guide, we’ll break down what exactly Lookalike Audiences are and how you can use them to boost your ad ROI efficiently.

What is a Lookalike Audiences in Meta Ads?

A targeting method that allows you to reach new people who are similar to your existing customers, leads, website visitors or app users is called a Lookalike Audiences in Meta Ads. Using analytics and advanced machine learning techniques, Meta analyzes interests, behaviours, and demographics of your source audience and finds users who share similar traits. This makes them far more likely to convert.

For better understanding, let’s take an example. Imagine uploading a list of your top 500 customers. Meta then finds 1-10% of users in a chosen country who ‘look alike’ those users based on shared data trends and patterns. In short, it is similar to cloning your best-performing audience free of guesswork.

What Do You Need Before Creating a Lookalike Audiences in Meta Ads?

Before you begin, you must have a source audience. They could be your page followers or engagers, custom audience or people who completed a purchase/ signed up via a lead form. Make sure you have facebook pixel or conversion API installed to ensure Meta can track user actions on your website and use that data to build audiences. You’ll also need to create and manage Lookalike Audiences through Meta Ads Manager.

How to Create a Lookalike Audiences in Meta Ads?

1. Go to Meta Business Manager and log in to your Meta Business Suite. On the left menu, click on “Audiences” under the “All Tools” section.
2. Choose “Lookalike Audience” and click on the blue “Create Audience” button. Then select “Lookalike Audience” to open up the Lookalike creation screen.
3. Select a Custom Audience you’ve already created in the “Source” field. To increase the performance of your Lookalike Audience, better the quality of your source audience.
4. Choose the country/ location where you want to find people similar to your source audience. You can create multiple Lookalikes for different countries but you can only choose locations per Lookalike.
5. Choose your audience size. A 1% lookalike will be the closest match to your source and typically performs best for conversions. However, the larger percentages (2–10%) include broader audiences with looser matches. This is often better for reach or awareness campaigns. The best practice is to start with 1%, test results and then expand gradually.
6. Create Your Lookalike Audience by clicking ‘create audience’. Meta will take a few minutes to process and generate your audience. You’ll see its status as “Populating” in the Audiences tab.

What Makes a Good Source Audience?

To build high-performing Lookalikes, your source audience quality matters more than size. Some examples are: High Lifetime Value (LTV) customers, Website visitors who reached checkout or purchase, Engaged video viewers (over 75% watched) and Email list of recent, paying customers. However, avoid uploading cold or broad audiences as Meta’s AI will mirror what you feed it. If you feed garbage, garbage will be the outcome.

How to Use Lookalike Audiences in Meta Ads Campaign?

Once your Lookalike Audiences in Meta Ads is created, you can use it as your target audience in new or existing ad campaigns.

• Create or edit a campaign in Meta Ads Manager
• At the Ad Set level, go to Audience
• Under Custom Audiences, select your Lookalike Audience
• Layer additional targeting (optional) such as age, gender, or interest exclusions
• Complete the rest of the ad setup and launch your campaign

You can also test multiple ranges of Lookalike Audiences in Meta :

• Ad Set 1: Lookalike 1% (conversion-focused)
• Ad Set 2: Lookalike 3–5% (reach-focused)
• Ad Set 3: Lookalike 6–10% (top-of-funnel/awareness)

You can also combine Lookalikes with Other Targeting, by excluding your original Custom Audience (to avoid showing ads to existing users). Also exclude your original Custom Audience (to avoid showing ads to existing users). Layer interests or behaviors on top of Lookalikes and create Value-Based Lookalikes, where Meta prioritizes users similar to your highest spenders. These techniques help balance scale with efficiency.